PEOPLE

The career utility executive, who spent more than 20 years at a mid-sized power and gas company in western Michigan, will oversee the unregulated businesses of ComEd parent Unicom Corp. as president of Unicom Enterprises and executive vice-president of Unicom.

Eventually, he will run the competitive businesses of both Unicom and Philadelphia-based Peco Energy Co., after the two companies close their recently announced merger. In fact, Unicom Chairman and CEO John W. Rowe persuaded Mr. Elbert to come on board about the same time the big merger was announced.

Mr. Elbert, a 1971 graduate of Ohio State University, spent three years in the Peace Corps, with stints in Cameroon and Ghana. He earned a master's degree in industrial and labor relations from the University of Illinois before plunging into the utility field at Jackson, Mich.-based Consumers Power Co., where he ran an array of operations.

"I'm 50 years old, and the question became, is there an adventure left?" Mr. Elbert says of his decision to leave his longtime home.

Mr. Elbert's most recent responsibilities at Consumers centered on competitive businesses. He oversaw natural gas operations for the unit of Dearborn, Mich.-based CMS Energy Corp., shepherding the company through a pilot program that allowed two-thirds of its 300,000 household customers to shop for gas providers.

Before that, he supervised the public issuance of a new "tracking stock" for the company's gas division, amounting to a 25% stake.

"It was the first time the gas utility had a stand-alone profit-and-loss statement and a mandate to grow earnings per share," he says.

In his years at Consumers, Mr. Elbert also has run transmission and distribution for both the gas and electric utilities, regulatory affairs and the company's fossil and hydro power plants.

Mr. Elbert is personable and puts people at ease, says Stephen E. Ewing, president and CEO of MichCon, the natural gas utility subsidiary of Detroit-based MCN Energy Group Inc. "He really draws out people's creativity."

Creativity will be needed because the electricity and natural gas businesses are evolving toward customer choice, and successful utilities will have to learn how to appeal to customers, says Mr. Elbert. They also must foster employee innovation and freedom within their corporate cultures -- something utilities haven't been known for.

"(Utilities) are under tremendous pressure to reduce the price of electricity," he says. "It's a noble objective, but for me, it's not the key policy objective. The first and foremost objective of deregulation is to free the customer (from a monopoly system)."

Once that happens, he argues, the lingering ill will of customers displeased with ComEd's legacy of high rates and spotty service will disappear.

David L. Underhill, 47, to vice-president of intergroup development at Tribune Co. and continuing as vice-president of video and audio at Tribune Publishing Co. and general manager at Tribune Regional Programming.